Learning how to tattoo!
Blog 1
3/15/16
I Start my journey by trying to understand the inner working behind the way that tattoos actually work to make the colored effect on the skin. I looked at some videos of people being tattooed and browsed through many pictures of different sorts of tattoo needles. After stumbling over very confusing arrangement of different people telling their stories about how bad tattoos can feel, i still found myself not understanding how it actually works. Eventually I found a video named "TATTOOING Close Up (in Slow Motion)" from the Youtube channel "Smarter Everyday".
This video helped give me a better idea of how a tattoo machine actually works, how a tattoo needle works with the skin and how it can be easy to see how tattoos can be scary at first. The tattoo needle itself can be different depending on the design of the tattoo of amount of skin if to be covered at a time. If a tattoo is comprised of mostly line art then the needle(s) used for the job may be anywhere from 1 single needle poking the skin to around 3-4 needles grouped up very closely poking the skin at the same time to make a thicker or wider line on the tattoo. If the piece includes any sort of shading then the needle(s) may look very different, to several needles not so much grouped into a circle tightly nit, but a line of needles acting as a paint brush, moving in a direction in unison to cover a wider depth.
Blog 2
3/15/16
I have been looking into how the tattoo needles actually affect the skin. When the tattoo needle(s) are applied to your skin, the affect is a bit different to what may be expected. The needle does not actually puncture a large portion of the flesh, all of the tattooing process is done in the first two layers of the skin. The Epidermis , the skin that you can touch that eventually flakes off after tattoo, the dermis and hypo dermis. when you get a tattoo, the needle settles the ink right
under the surface of the dermis which is just deep enough so that the ink will not
flake with the skin in the dermis at a depth of about 1/8". (Site covering in depth the of tattoos)
In theory there should be no blood when a tattoo is being done because of the lack of depth the needle needs to work, but when it does happen, it can normally be traced back to a heavy hand or nervous customer.
The site Painful Pleasures helped me a lot with understanding the way that tattoo machines (the machine that moves the needle) work and the difference between the kinds. There are two basic types of Tattoo machines, Rotary and Coil. A Rotary machine uses a technique of spinning the rod the needle is attached to. Brings the needle up and down several 1-2mm up and downward depending on the adjustment. The coil machine has the same effect except the coil machine uses a electric charge, pulsing the rod attached to the need up and down in such a way that the rod is pulled up magnetically and forced bck magnetically in rapid succession. this causes the needle to go up and down with the rod giving the wanted effect.
Blog 3
3/15/16
So, tattoo ink is freaky. Ive learned that the things in tattoo ink is more or less comprised of a bunch of chemicals that you would normally never put in your body if you were paid to, but because of the way that it is inserted, injected, poked - into the skin, it is not harmful to your body unless you are one of the rare people that have a natural allergenic issue with any of the chemicals. Most of the weirdest metals and chemicals in tattoo in are in the colors. Some of the heavy metals used for colors include mercury (red) lead (yellow, green, white) cadmium (red, orange, yellow) nickel (black); zinc (yellow, white) chromium (green); cobalt (blue); aluminum (green, violet); titanium (white); copper (blue, green) iron (brown, red, black) and barium (white). Don't worry tho, almost everywhere I look, I Cannot find a reliable source that says these chems/metals are actually dangerous during tattooing.
During the act of tattooing, the ink is normally poured into the cap for the ink bottle of a very small cup which hold the ink so that when you need to get the needle(s) you are using wet, it is easier to dip (apply) the ink to the needle. It is not necessarily hard to acquire tattoo ink as you can buy tens of small bottles for under 20$ but the cheaper the price of ink, the more likely that you are buying tattoo ink which has properties that are not exactly dangerous, but not as effective in staying in the skin or keeping color as good as a more potent, less liquid/watery mix of Tattoo ink
Blog 4
3/16/16
I have decided to use my new tattoo kit but before that, I
decided to test my knowledge of myself on how Tattoos are appiedbto the
skin using a needle and ink. I took the Green tattoo ink that came with
the kit and I used it to poke the back of my thumb with the needle, i
did this about 10 times lightly so that the ink and needle would
penatrate the top layer of skin. I gave myself this, a green dot on my
thumb. After giving myself what I can sum up as the equivalent of a
prison tattoo, i studied the after effects of it.
Blog 5
3/16/16
NOW - My very own tattoo machine and equipment. First there is the needle. My kit came with 12 needle, of which I Have only 8 of now. the needles ranged from 1 to 9 round (representing the amount of needles group at the end). These needles all came in their respective packaging and are sterilized in the packaging. I noticed how tattoo needles also have a loop at the end of them where they would be pushed/pulled by the tattoo machine. Some rotary and coil machines connect the the end of the meedle in different ways but the change is never the needle only the machine. For example - In some pictures some places i have found that the loop on the needle will sometimes snap onto the machines turning mechanism like a button. But on my coil machine, the armature bar, the var which thrist the needle up and down, only runs through the needle loosely with no effort to take it off. This means that there is a added rubber band, constantly putting preasure on the neede loop to keep it snug on the end of the armature bar.
Blog 6
3/16/16
So this my the tattoo gun. Her name is Cynthia and she is probably one of the cheapest things I've ever seen. The armature bar is made of plastic, the road and tip for the grip are both a cheap aluminum. One of the plastic screws holding the contact screw in place was so cheap I broke it trying to tighten it, which made me have to replace it with another plastic screw and use another rubber band to keep the contact screw at a constant angle to the armature bar. The contact screw itself is not removable from the rest of the machine, the nob end will twist off eventually leaving no way to tightened the screw.
The Clip cord connecting to the Coil (Armature bar) and the contact screw connected very well. I admit, it pretty hard to figure out exactly where the connection points are, but when you look hard enough, its a pretty easy connection.
Blog 7
3/16/16
IT TOOK ME LIKE A HALF HOUR BUT I DID IT. I figured out how the power source for the tattoo machine actually works. I Wasn't sure how to adjust the nob on it properly and i wasnt sure on how the inputs correspond of each other but i was able to figure it out after a google search and accidentally setting the machine on super high power and making the tattoo "gun" go crazy on the table, scaring the hell out of me.
The picture on the right is the foot pedal which controls the flow of electricity to the clip cord. The left picture is the power source. The left input is for the clip cord will run from the power source to the machine itself. The right input is for were the foot pedal connects is connected. when the foot pedal is clamped down, it will produce a max output from the power source of whatever the nob is set too. The nob controls the amount of max power you are sending into the tattoo machine to function, this can vary from what may feel comfortable on the hand of the tattooist and the sped you are doing the tattoo in. the green light will grow brighter and brighter depending on how much power is being pusched through the machine. It also has skulls on it, so that pretty cool I guess :)
Blog 8
3/16/16
So this is my tattoo! It read the name Pearl in a pretty italic font. this picture was taken about 4-5 months ago when i first had it done. I had it done at a place called Ancient Art, located here in Tucson. The artist who tattooed me was a man named Henry Gould. He was nice enough to show me some of his work, he explained to me how tattoo artist are just that - ARTIST - many of them design their own tattoos for people and use their unique artistry to re imagine the idea of the customers request normally resulting in a product (tattoo) which is not only the customers, but a piece of art that the tattooist can be proud of. I am using my own tattoo as a example of this. When i told Henry that i wanted a tattoo of the Name Pearl on my arm and gave him a vague description of what i wanted from it. he went and free handed the tattoo design himself. I Was thinking of this when it came time for the new blog post and i decides to try to touch on how I learned a bit about how tattooing is a eventful moment in the life of the person recieving and the person giving the tattoo.
